


The Man Within The Painting

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Character Study, Epistolary, Gen, Hopeful Ending, One-Shot, Steve Rogers Feels, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28325268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Neither of them was the people they once were. A lot had changed since  either of them had a proper conversation. Things had been thrown, tears had been wept, laughter was shared, blood had been shed, and unspeakable horrors had haunted them. And they can never get back the time that had been lost.But now, Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes possessed two treasures. They had each other and the promise of a better life with each other.And isn’t that enough?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Man Within The Painting

Practiced, long fingers held a paintbrush, its grip gentle, except for the tension created from the slight trembling originating from the passion the owner of the fingers poured into it. 

A man, the size of a house, sat on a simple wooden stool, facing the room’s great, floor-to-ceiling windows. New York’s impressive landscape, with its tall and modern buildings that attracted thousands of tourists and future residents every day, brought natural and illuminating light to the studio. 

The canvas that the man was working on reflected the sun’s brightness, making the white material seem almost ethereal. What with its skillful brushstrokes, outstanding colors, and the way the painting commanded the attention of those in the same room with it, one could almost say it looked like it belonged in a wealthy doctor’s waiting room. 

Almost.

The canvas displayed a horrifying scene, one that would most certainly scare those patients off. Painted on its surface was a scene of the streets of New York, all in monochrome colors, each building etched as an odd mix of modern 21st century and old-fashioned 20th century designed architecture. As if the artist couldn’t decide what era to tell the story in, so decided to reflect the reality of his uncertainty with these bizarre obelisks of shelter. 

What stuck out though, were the sole figures of color that stood out both brightly and dull at the same time, creating a feeling of anxious uncertainty within the viewer.

There stood a tall and great man dressed in the bright colors of the American flag, red, white, and blue. His hair, a golden color, stood perfect and stiff. His posture was ramrod straight and his perfectly proportional muscles bulged out as his arms stood straight by his side. The man’s facial expressions were unreadable and as immovable as that of a marble statue. This figure was painted in an efficient and focused manner.

A perfect replica of...someone--no, wait that’s not it...something perhaps? A symbol, an idea, a fantasy...One can’t be certain, can they? Not even the artist themselves can they? After all, once inspiration guides your hand and releases its energy onto the canvas, you can’t be sure of what its intentions were. And…

There was another figure, in this painting, shorter and skinnier, but no less proud. Their chin was up, face unhealthily pale. He wore clothes from the early 20th century, ragged and patched. Shoes that seemed several sizes too big on him, newspaper stuffed on the tips the only way he could’ve walked in them. His hands were long, slender ones with bird bone frail wrists supporting them. Artist’s hands, a mother once said to him. But all these observations seem irrelevant when one takes a good look at the figure’s eyes. They were once full of fire, one could tell if they cared enough to take a closer look. A bright inferno formerly lit this young man’s spirit. It motivated and inspired and forged the strongest backbone one could ever ask for, as well as an iron will that equaled its strength. However, this is what was once. Now…  
The once proud and strong beanstalk, that survived the harshest of winters and the cruelest famines, wilted like a common daisy when one day, it became too much. Like all wildfires, it will eventually die out. Whether by human intervention or by nature itself, is a mystery that only the fire itself would have answered. 

Now the small man’s eyes were desperate and lonely, his ghostly body fading in and out of existence, as no one could perceive him. No one saw him, they all saw the man in red, white, and blue. The caricature, the statue, the symbol, the soldier. they all saw the man who was not a man. But, they never cared enough to discover if there was a human behind the plastic doll eyes of The Captain. And so the frail man was a soul doomed to follow the person he had become to preserve the only piece of identity he had left. 

It cost him everything. It’s all so very ironic, isn’t it?

All his life, the frail man wished to the bottom of his very being to prove to everybody who's bullied, belittled, underestimated, and pitied him that he wasn’t his illnesses and disabilities. It was just the body he was dealt with in this life. That he was just as capable as anybody else, that he deserved to live just like every able-bodied person on this earth. And when a German scientist came and chose him, a disabled and unimpressive man, out of everybody else with not only a cure but a chance to be more than the people that had looked down at him all his life? Well, the man took that chance. 

And so he’d blossomed into the tall and great man he could be. And the man was overjoyed because he was finally the man he had always wanted to be. 

The euphoria, however, didn’t last long. 

As time went on, the man went from a disabled man to a science experiment to a dancing monkey for greasy politicians to a soldier to a figurehead and finally, to a dead man. Or so everyone thought. Until the dead man was turned into a symbol of America’s so-called greatness and fed propagandist poison into each American citizen’s minds. That period lasted seven decades until the man went from symbol to living human once again. That seemed to slip everybody’s mind when they met the Captain. To them, the man would always be a symbol, the only difference now was that he was breathing, a movable symbol. 

The artist reflected on all of this with the practiced detachment of a man whose identity was a strange foreign concept to them. He finished the painting with a graceful flick of a brush and sat back to look at it in its entirety. 

“I want to say I’m surprised at the sheer horror and cynicism you are capable of painting, but I’ve known you too long to be shocked at your mental state, Rogers.”

The man turned to face the doorway, where a woman with dark, crimson red hair and green eyes that seemed to have sprouted in the middle of a Russian winter gazed at him.  
“I’m just reflecting reality as it is Romanov.” the man merely replied, his expression betraying nothing. The woman, Romanov, just cocked her head to one side, face equally unreadable. She was weirdly stationed at the doorway, her body positioned in a way to indicate that she was hiding something. The man narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to inquire when, 

“I disagree. After all, it’s a common fact that James Barnes and Steven Rogers were attached to each other by the hips, isn’t it? Barnes wasn’t by your side then, true, but now?”

The man froze and stared at Romanov with disbelief and hope written all over his face, breaking the stony expression from before. He dropped the paintbrush he was holding as he pushed himself off the stool and walked towards the woman. 

“Natasha, what are you---”

The man, Steve Rogers, halted in his pursuit towards Natasha as she shifted away from the door and revealed a man with handsome features and shoulder-length wild brown hair. His expression was shifty and anxious, but he stood his ground and faced Steve Rogers head-on. 

“Heya, Stevie,” The handsome man said, his voice trembling the slightest bit. “How’ve you been?” 

And...Steve for the first time since waken up in the 21st century, genuinely smiled. Big and wide, with dimples tugging at his cheeks. Because for the first time in ages, Steve Rogers felt hope for the future. Bucky, his friend, his companion, his soulmate, was here after all those months and months of fruitless searches, Bucky ended up coming to him. 

“I-I think I’ll be fine Buck.” 

The man nodded hesitantly, smiling back. 

“ Th-that’s good then.”

Natasha discreetly left them alone to talk and they stared at each other, at a loss of what more to say.

Finally, Steve gathered his courage and stared into Bucky’s lost and hesitant eyes. 

“There’s a cafe nearby, not too far from the tower, it’s been preserved to look just like it was in the ’30s. I-I go there often and if you’d like, we could go there to catch up. You know, if you want…”

Cautiously, Bucky nodded and smiled tentatively. Steve smiled back just as fragile. They turned and exited the studio side by side. 

Neither of them was the people they once were. A lot had changed since either of them had a proper conversation. Things had been thrown, tears had been wept, laughter was shared, blood had been shed, and unspeakable horrors had haunted them. And they can never get back the time that had been lost. 

But now, Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes possessed two treasures. They had each other and the promise of a better life with each other. 

And isn’t that enough?

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this as a series ;) I'll just have to see where my muse takes me. 
> 
> If you'd like, please leave feedback and kudos for me, I'd really appreciate it. (❁´◡`❁)


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